Thirty United Nations staff in Vietnam will help monitor the 2009 Population and Housing Census, which will be carried out in 21 provinces throughout the country from April 1 to 15, 2009. This is the first time that UN agencies in Vietnam have jointly participated in a census monitoring.
The purpose of the monitoring trips is to advocate for and reinforce the importance of the national census enumeration, so that more efforts and resources will be made available by government authorities at all levels, thereby helping to ensure the quality and success of the census.
“These joint UN monitoring trips demonstrate how the UN Country Team is working together as one so as to better provide recommendations to the Government on how census enumerations can be further improved. Supporting the 2009 Census is a key priority for the United Nations as it will provide the Government with the detailed information required to undertake more robust socio-economic development planning for the next ten years,” said Mr. John Hendra, United Nations Resident Coordinator.
The 2009 Census will collect data on population size, structure and distribution, migration as well as information on education, qualifications, economic activity in the last seven days, disability, fertility, reasons of death to estimate the maternal mortality rate and information on housing conditions such as floor area, number of rooms, safe water use, telephone and computer usage and type of fuel used for cooking.
The total cost of the census is around US$33 million, which works out at US$0.38 per person. Of this, the State will cover US$30 million of the expected costs, while the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will contribute US$3 million. “Many people say that the census is costly, but if we compare the amount per person with other countries in the region, it is much cheaper. On the other hand, if our programmes were formulated on low quality data, it would be even more costly,” added Mr. Bruce Campbell, UNFPA Representative.
Data provided by the 2009 Census is key to assessing implementation of the 2001-2010 socio-economic development plan and to prepare the 2011-2020 socio-economic development plan. In addition, the 2009 Census will provide information which is useful for monitoring implementation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
It is estimated that 300,000 enumerators, supervisors and more than 6,000 Government officials and staff members from central to commune level will participate in the census operations. The preliminary results of the census will be disseminated by July 2009 and full census data will be available by the third quarter of 2010. (UN Release)
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